chuljin
Lead Service Attendant
Not having been for a while, I decided to take a day-trip to OSD on Saturday 1/3, as well as spending the quality time 
with LAX that I'm usually denied when scurrying to or from work.
I rarely write trip reports for such hell-of-it trips, but this had a few highlights, not least the Ultimate Showdown at the end. (The juicy bit is at the very end, in case you want to skip all the strange minutiae that interest only me. )
Amtrak 768, GDL to LAX
Consist
6907 Surfliner Coach/Cab/Baggage (Surfliner)
6411 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6406 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6400 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6307 Surfliner Café (Surfliner) *Seat 45
6807 Surfliner Business
457 F59PHI
Unremarkable, except that due the miracle of 'Pricing Points', the effective cost of this ticket was $1. (LAX-OSD is $19; GDL-OSD is $20 and thus so is GDL-LAX-OSD [and, I imagine {and have experienced as recently as last weekend's 'typewriter trip' to IRV (GDL-LAX-FUL-SNA-IRV-GDL; LAX ticket agent: 'Sounds like a busy day!')} GDL-LAX-FUL-SNA-OSD].) Mr. Brutal Honesty Freebie* was among the conductors on this leg, but fortunately a different one got to me first, so no struggle in getting my ticket lifted. Aside: there, jackal, four levels of nested parentheses, brackets, and braces.
LAX 1
I'd given myself a little under two hours here, during which I got to do such things as see the northbound CS board and leave, and get a bagel and coffee from Union Bagel. With the bagel thee give you far more cream cheese than you'd expect for the price, though I agree with AlanB's opinion of their coffee as the worst in the universe.
Eventually, I boarded:
Amtrak 572, LAX to OSD
Consist
463 F59PHI
6852 'Elysian Park' Surfliner Business *Seat 39
6304 Surfliner Café (Surfliner)
6402 'Solana Beach' Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6404 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6906 Surfliner Coach/Cab/Baggage (Surfliner)
I chose this particular train (and the one below) so as not to give myself *too* much time in OSD (though in the end it was still a little too much), and also to look for Gloria*. Recently, she'd been conspicuously absent. I would soon find out why.
As we passed the Amtrak shops of 2008 Gathering fame, I finally noticed what I'd been looking for at the Metrolink shops every day since the most recent issue of Metrolink Matters came out: the Comet cars borrowed from NJT. I would have taken a picture, but they were (mostly) obscured by the never-moving long line of ExpressTrak boxcars.
As announced by the sign at the top of the stairs near the goodies area, service began promptly at noon, just after we left SNA. The attendant's preparations for it were a source of considerable entertainment, opening and closing cabinets, neatly lining up the AmSnacks in the box, and so on. White wine, of course, together with my famous cheese and crackers (in contrast to most other Surfliner trips, the AmSnacks were left in the goodies area for passengers to help themselves. I didn't.) Since I'm the kind of hard-eating epicure who notices such things, the two BabyBels in the pack were both BonBels, instead of the usual one BonBel and one Gouda. Right in front of me in the line at the café was a woman who asked for 3 cups of ice. The cafe attendant guessed the reason, and said that consuming private stock was not allowed, and that 5 people had already been expelled at FUL for it. She satisfied herself with 3 bloody maries. Back at my seat, I asked the BC attendant (also a nice lady) 'Do you know Gloria B****r?' 'Oh, yes.' 'Has she retired or something?' (She didn't seem quite ready for it, but one never knows.) 'Oh, no, we switched, she now has Monday to Thursday.' One less mystery in my life. Between SNC and OSD, I recorded a speed of just over 90mph.
We arrived 8 minutes early at:
OSD
I'd given myself a little under 3 hours, which I struggled to fill with entertainment. In retrospect, I could have had a turn on the Sprinter. The last time I'd come to OSD, it was on a Sunday, when the Sprinter (at that time) had one hour headways. This time I came on a Saturday, and besides, they've now improved midday headways to 1/2 hour, even on Sundays. I went to the seedy Burger King there at the station, in the usual way, and made lunch of a burger that disintegrated into an enormous sticky mess on the first bite. I now had only 2.5 hours to try to entertain myself. I went down to (but not out onto) the pier, watched surfing for a bit, had a gelato at Pier View Coffee, and did something that had never occured to me on several previous visits: walked 'downtown' Oceanside, along Coast Highway/Hill Street. There are a lot of businesses catering to Camp Pendleton, not least many tailors, and barber shops advertising 'regulation' haircuts.
Back at the station, I watched a couple Metrolink and Coaster trains come and go, along with Amtrak 578, then boarded:
Amtrak 583, OSD to LAX
Consist
6906 Surfliner Coach/Cab/Baggage (Surfliner)
6404 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6402 'Solana Beach' Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6304 Surfliner Café (Surfliner)
6852 'Elysian Park' Surfliner Business *Seat 55
463 F59PHI
As the train arrived and my door opened, the same attendant (572 turns back as 583 after a little over an hour at SAN, and it seems the same crew does the whole of both trips) saw me and said 'Well you were on here this morning!' and pointed me out to the conductor as 'That's the guy who asked about Gloria'.
Uneventful typical Surfliner trip. Famous cheese and crackers with white wine; later an AmSnack with the Diet Coke I'd bought at OSD. I sat across from two guys who were UFO conspiracy theorists who also knew everything else. I didn't interact with them, but listening to them made for interesting passive entertainment. The sun must have set numerous times while I was on an Amtrak train, but this is the first time I noticed it, and SoCal pollution made it quite attractive.
We arrived 4 minutes early at:
LAX 2
I went to the main hall to get yet another Diet Coke, then through the tunnel to go to the East Portal to see if I could catch the SWC coming in. Just as I entered the tunnel, I swore I saw Chris 2 (printman)'s father, of 2008 Gathering fame. I ran to catch up and say hi, but then saw it was not him, and so walking normally again. Even still, the partial resemblance was uncanny, and I still half expect printman to say 'my uncle was getting on the SWC that night.' Back to the front of the station, in time for the automated announcements for Trains 4 and 590, and the CS advertisement to start. This was about the time I'm at LAX every weekday on my way home, so I'd heard it all before, but this time I had easily-accessible writing materials with me, and could take notes about some wierdnesses I've noticed in these many months. They all use synthesized rather than recorded voices; the train announcements are in English in an American male voice, followed by the same in Spanish in a non-Castilian female voice; the CS advertisement is in English (only) in a (rather creepy) British male voice. They all seem to have been typed up carelessly, then dumped into the synthesizer, with some funny results.
Train 4 (in the list of stations, which is the funny bit here, a line break is a [sometimes inappropriate or confusing] pause, while words on the same line are spoken without pause [again, sometimes confusingly])
Train 590 (and other southbound Surfliners), Spanish version in 'Oceanside', 'Ocean' is pronounced as if Spanish ('oh-say-ahn') but 'side' as if English ('side'). For the rest of this and other announcements, it correctly knows that it's Spanish and pronounces correctly. It seems like it should just say 'Oceanside' or (if being utterly Spanish) 'oh-say-ahn-see-day', but not half-and-half.
The CS advertisement: Every use of the phrase 'Coast Starlight' has a long sentence-break pause between the two words, like: 'The Coast. Starlight leaves at 9:15 tomorrow morning.' The two X's in Traxx (the 'lounge' for sleeper passengers on #14) confuses it too: 'traxix'.
Because I've had 10 months of practice, I knew right where to stand to board, as soon as it arrived from the south:
Amtrak 785, LAX to GDL
Consist
459 F59PHI
6803 Surfliner Business
6302 'Sand Canyon' Surfliner Café (Surfliner) *Seat 41
6413 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6407 'Bolsa Chica Beach' Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
31021 Superliner I Coach/Baggage
6908 Surfliner Coach/Cab/Baggage (Surfliner)
Uneventful during the trip itself, just like almost every day. Rosie* was one of the conductors today (she seems [and also once mentioned] to have been promoted to Lead Conductor [is that the right term?]). Also just like almost every day, I sat in car 2. We arrived at GDL about a minute early, and, consist junkie that I am, I walked forward to write down the locomotive and Business car, then headed back towards the back (and my parking space).
Walking along the station side of the wall, approaching car 4, I heard the word 'lighter' (I *think*) yelled in several different voices, then was shocked to hear that unkindest of all unkind words to use in reference to any lady (the dreaded 'c-bomb'). I then sadly discovered that it had been used to Rosie by one of a group of 5 people who were arguing with her about something. I observed silently and didn't get involved, and am still not entirely sure what it was about, but they ended the 'discussion' with several of the party telling her to 'learn how to do her job' and, in the halting, tentative English of a wizened old woman, 'I ride train every week I know what prices are!' I would have stood and cheered if Rosie'd gone off on them (that word is just *not* used), but she kept her cool professionalism, and the worse they got was (sarcastically, of course) 'You're such a Gentleman! You're so educated!'. After they left the platform, she matter-of-factly radioed: 'OK, we can leave as soon as the departure time comes.' I'd have laughed pretty hard if that was not their station and they'd been expelled from the train, but it seemed to be: they piled into into a car at GDL and sped off.
*Characters:
with LAX that I'm usually denied when scurrying to or from work.I rarely write trip reports for such hell-of-it trips, but this had a few highlights, not least the Ultimate Showdown at the end. (The juicy bit is at the very end, in case you want to skip all the strange minutiae that interest only me.
)Amtrak 768, GDL to LAX
Consist
6907 Surfliner Coach/Cab/Baggage (Surfliner)
6411 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6406 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6400 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6307 Surfliner Café (Surfliner) *Seat 45
6807 Surfliner Business
457 F59PHI
Unremarkable, except that due the miracle of 'Pricing Points', the effective cost of this ticket was $1. (LAX-OSD is $19; GDL-OSD is $20 and thus so is GDL-LAX-OSD [and, I imagine {and have experienced as recently as last weekend's 'typewriter trip' to IRV (GDL-LAX-FUL-SNA-IRV-GDL; LAX ticket agent: 'Sounds like a busy day!')} GDL-LAX-FUL-SNA-OSD].) Mr. Brutal Honesty Freebie* was among the conductors on this leg, but fortunately a different one got to me first, so no struggle in getting my ticket lifted.
Aside: there, jackal, four levels of nested parentheses, brackets, and braces. LAX 1
I'd given myself a little under two hours here, during which I got to do such things as see the northbound CS board and leave, and get a bagel and coffee from Union Bagel. With the bagel thee give you far more cream cheese than you'd expect for the price, though I agree with AlanB's opinion of their coffee as the worst in the universe.
Eventually, I boarded:
Amtrak 572, LAX to OSD
Consist
463 F59PHI
6852 'Elysian Park' Surfliner Business *Seat 39
6304 Surfliner Café (Surfliner)
6402 'Solana Beach' Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6404 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6906 Surfliner Coach/Cab/Baggage (Surfliner)
I chose this particular train (and the one below) so as not to give myself *too* much time in OSD (though in the end it was still a little too much), and also to look for Gloria*. Recently, she'd been conspicuously absent. I would soon find out why.
As we passed the Amtrak shops of 2008 Gathering fame, I finally noticed what I'd been looking for at the Metrolink shops every day since the most recent issue of Metrolink Matters came out: the Comet cars borrowed from NJT. I would have taken a picture, but they were (mostly) obscured by the never-moving long line of ExpressTrak boxcars.
As announced by the sign at the top of the stairs near the goodies area, service began promptly at noon, just after we left SNA. The attendant's preparations for it were a source of considerable entertainment, opening and closing cabinets, neatly lining up the AmSnacks in the box, and so on. White wine, of course, together with my famous cheese and crackers (in contrast to most other Surfliner trips, the AmSnacks were left in the goodies area for passengers to help themselves. I didn't.) Since I'm the kind of hard-eating epicure who notices such things, the two BabyBels in the pack were both BonBels, instead of the usual one BonBel and one Gouda. Right in front of me in the line at the café was a woman who asked for 3 cups of ice. The cafe attendant guessed the reason, and said that consuming private stock was not allowed, and that 5 people had already been expelled at FUL for it. She satisfied herself with 3 bloody maries. Back at my seat, I asked the BC attendant (also a nice lady) 'Do you know Gloria B****r?' 'Oh, yes.' 'Has she retired or something?' (She didn't seem quite ready for it, but one never knows.) 'Oh, no, we switched, she now has Monday to Thursday.' One less mystery in my life.
Between SNC and OSD, I recorded a speed of just over 90mph. We arrived 8 minutes early at:
OSD
I'd given myself a little under 3 hours, which I struggled to fill with entertainment. In retrospect, I could have had a turn on the Sprinter. The last time I'd come to OSD, it was on a Sunday, when the Sprinter (at that time) had one hour headways. This time I came on a Saturday, and besides, they've now improved midday headways to 1/2 hour, even on Sundays. I went to the seedy Burger King there at the station, in the usual way, and made lunch of a burger that disintegrated into an enormous sticky mess on the first bite. I now had only 2.5 hours to try to entertain myself. I went down to (but not out onto) the pier, watched surfing for a bit, had a gelato at Pier View Coffee, and did something that had never occured to me on several previous visits: walked 'downtown' Oceanside, along Coast Highway/Hill Street. There are a lot of businesses catering to Camp Pendleton, not least many tailors, and barber shops advertising 'regulation' haircuts.
Back at the station, I watched a couple Metrolink and Coaster trains come and go, along with Amtrak 578, then boarded:
Amtrak 583, OSD to LAX
Consist
6906 Surfliner Coach/Cab/Baggage (Surfliner)
6404 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6402 'Solana Beach' Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6304 Surfliner Café (Surfliner)
6852 'Elysian Park' Surfliner Business *Seat 55
463 F59PHI
As the train arrived and my door opened, the same attendant (572 turns back as 583 after a little over an hour at SAN, and it seems the same crew does the whole of both trips) saw me and said 'Well you were on here this morning!' and pointed me out to the conductor as 'That's the guy who asked about Gloria'.
Uneventful typical Surfliner trip. Famous cheese and crackers with white wine; later an AmSnack with the Diet Coke I'd bought at OSD. I sat across from two guys who were UFO conspiracy theorists who also knew everything else. I didn't interact with them, but listening to them made for interesting passive entertainment. The sun must have set numerous times while I was on an Amtrak train, but this is the first time I noticed it, and SoCal pollution made it quite attractive.
We arrived 4 minutes early at:
LAX 2
I went to the main hall to get yet another Diet Coke, then through the tunnel to go to the East Portal to see if I could catch the SWC coming in. Just as I entered the tunnel, I swore I saw Chris 2 (printman)'s father, of 2008 Gathering fame. I ran to catch up and say hi, but then saw it was not him, and so walking normally again. Even still, the partial resemblance was uncanny, and I still half expect printman to say 'my uncle was getting on the SWC that night.'
Back to the front of the station, in time for the automated announcements for Trains 4 and 590, and the CS advertisement to start. This was about the time I'm at LAX every weekday on my way home, so I'd heard it all before, but this time I had easily-accessible writing materials with me, and could take notes about some wierdnesses I've noticed in these many months. They all use synthesized rather than recorded voices; the train announcements are in English in an American male voice, followed by the same in Spanish in a non-Castilian female voice; the CS advertisement is in English (only) in a (rather creepy) British male voice. They all seem to have been typed up carelessly, then dumped into the synthesizer, with some funny results.Train 4 (in the list of stations, which is the funny bit here, a line break is a [sometimes inappropriate or confusing] pause, while words on the same line are spoken without pause [again, sometimes confusingly])
etc.Train 590 (and other southbound Surfliners), English version in Santa Ana, 'Santa' is pronounced as if English (like Santa Claus), but 'Ana' as if Spanish ('ahna').May I have your attention please. This will be the first [or last] call for Train number 4, the Southwest Chief, stopping at:Fullerton
Riverside
...
Lamy
Las Vegas
New Mexico
Raton ['rayten']
Trinidad Louisiana Junta [interpreting 'La' as a state code; 'hoontah' was at least right
Lamar
...
Lawrence Kansas City
Louisiana Plata ['La' again]
...
Chicago
Only ticket passengers are permitted to board the train.
Train 590 (and other southbound Surfliners), Spanish version in 'Oceanside', 'Ocean' is pronounced as if Spanish ('oh-say-ahn') but 'side' as if English ('side'). For the rest of this and other announcements, it correctly knows that it's Spanish and pronounces correctly. It seems like it should just say 'Oceanside' or (if being utterly Spanish) 'oh-say-ahn-see-day', but not half-and-half.
The CS advertisement: Every use of the phrase 'Coast Starlight' has a long sentence-break pause between the two words, like: 'The Coast. Starlight leaves at 9:15 tomorrow morning.' The two X's in Traxx (the 'lounge' for sleeper passengers on #14) confuses it too: 'traxix'.
Because I've had 10 months of practice, I knew right where to stand to board, as soon as it arrived from the south:
Amtrak 785, LAX to GDL
Consist
459 F59PHI
6803 Surfliner Business
6302 'Sand Canyon' Surfliner Café (Surfliner) *Seat 41
6413 Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
6407 'Bolsa Chica Beach' Surfliner Coach (Surfliner)
31021 Superliner I Coach/Baggage
6908 Surfliner Coach/Cab/Baggage (Surfliner)
Uneventful during the trip itself, just like almost every day. Rosie* was one of the conductors today (she seems [and also once mentioned] to have been promoted to Lead Conductor [is that the right term?]). Also just like almost every day, I sat in car 2. We arrived at GDL about a minute early, and, consist junkie that I am, I walked forward to write down the locomotive and Business car, then headed back towards the back (and my parking space).
Walking along the station side of the wall, approaching car 4, I heard the word 'lighter' (I *think*) yelled in several different voices, then was shocked to hear that unkindest of all unkind words to use in reference to any lady (the dreaded 'c-bomb'). I then sadly discovered that it had been used to Rosie by one of a group of 5 people who were arguing with her about something. I observed silently and didn't get involved, and am still not entirely sure what it was about, but they ended the 'discussion' with several of the party telling her to 'learn how to do her job' and, in the halting, tentative English of a wizened old woman, 'I ride train every week I know what prices are!' I would have stood and cheered if Rosie'd gone off on them (that word is just *not* used), but she kept her cool professionalism, and the worse they got was (sarcastically, of course) 'You're such a Gentleman! You're so educated!'. After they left the platform, she matter-of-factly radioed: 'OK, we can leave as soon as the departure time comes.' I'd have laughed pretty hard if that was not their station and they'd been expelled from the train, but it seemed to be: they piled into into a car at GDL and sped off.
*Characters:
- Mr. Brutal Honesty Freebie: one of the conductors on 785, north of LAX, on MWF, and on 768, north of LAX, on Sa (and, I would assume, TuTh). He doesn't usually start lifting tickets until after GDL (which makes sense, as I'm one of maybe 3-4 on the whole train), but as I'm in it for the points, I seek him out on the platform to turn mine over, for which I often get gentle, friendly crap about my 'brutal honesty' (and the Brutal Honesty Reward once ) Once, when I went to work on a Saturday, he said 'Hey! You're not allowed to ride the train on Saturdays!'
- Gloria: everyone who rides Amtrak had a first ride on Amtrak. As enthusiastic I am now about Amtrak (which is slightly older than me!), it surprises even my that that first ride, for me, was only a little over a year ago, on 12/14/07. Just to see what it's like, I took train 572, LAX-OSD (train number and destination both chosen quite arbitrarily) (and Metrolink back), and had a marvelous time, wondrous to experience. These days, I think nothing of tooling up and down the PS route just for the hell of it, but at that time, it was really something. As has become my ([whooz]elitist dog[/whooz] ) habit since, I went in business class, and Gloria B., the attendant on that trip, did an excellent job, treated each customer like they were her only customer and she'd known them for years, and is part of the reason I'm now hooked on Amtrak. I saw her again a few times, either when I was taking a shorter trip in coach or (especially during my Jan 08 shenanigans) passed through a station I was hanging out at, but only once again was I in her car. Then she just sort of...vanished. Only during this trip did I find out why.
- Rosie (Rocio): one of the conductors on 785, north of LAX, on TuThSa, and on 768, north of LAX, on at least Su (and I imagine one or more of MWF). Unless I just wasn't paying careful attention, she started working on 785 only in the past few months; recently promoted to Lead Conductor (at least for some runs; I don't know if it's a formal position, or just a rotating role). She's quite nice, and usually stops and chats for a bit when lifting my ticket. Interestingly, even the first time (that I remember, anyways) she did so, this chat was about things assuming a better-than-average knowledge of Amtrak, which I quite appreciated. Also, until I finally met the real BlueJeanGirl, Rosie was the one I thought most likely to be BJG.
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